Her branches lie butchered on the ground beneath a ragged skeleton of trunk and a few mangy twigs on top. Ilex 'Nellie R. Stevens' grew improbably to a gorgeous, thick stature, under white pines, besieged by deer, critters and vandals and dumping, with never any watering besides Mother Nature's rain. I realize the contractor currently in the process of tearing down a collapsing ruin and rebuilding a new sturdy structure in its place had no choice, as the accessway it now straggles upon is only 15-16' wide on a steep slope, with nowhere else to work.
So much beauty, gone after surviving such impossible conditions for 20 years - the loppers must only have taken a few minutes.
If you get a chance to plant a holly, I can't recommend this one enough. It's flowers are self-pollinating, in contrast to most other hollies, among which a plant is either female or male, but not both.
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October 26, 2017
My garden, as well as anything else we own outdoors, is now going into its 4th year of vandalism. All my garden dreams are now trashed, with no hope of whoever is doing this stopping. So, I would like to thank Frenchy21, for making me laugh and for staying hopeful, for her wonderful avatar of a helmeted mouse, contemplating its next charge upon a piece of cheese in a mousetrap: https://garden.org/users/profi...
Frenchy21, thank you - may those of us who love gardening never give up our dreams, even if we can't be allowed to garden on our own plot of dirt. Keeping up with this vandal is not gardening - it's maintenance a la Sisyphus and Torquemada.
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